Vintage '86
Tuesday, August 17, 2021 at 5:15PM The Smackdown of '86 (with special guests) arrives in just 9 days. Before we get to the main event let's talk about what people were talking about that year in film, television, stage, music, and books...
Great Big Box Office Hits: Movie stars rather than IP still ruled so the top ten made room for Tom Cruise, Eddie Murphy, and Bette Midler vehicles along with just 3 sequels (can you imagine a top ten box office of the year with just 3 sequels nowadays? It's hard to do). Military men and women were also the rage with the marines of Aliens, the airforce bros of Top Gun, and the traumatized foot soldiers of Platoon all extremely popular with moviegoers.
- Top Gun (military drama)
- Crocodile Dundee (comedy)
- Platoon (military drama)
- Karate Kid Part II (sequel)
- Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (sci-fi sequel)...
- Back to School (Rodney Dangerfield comedy)
- Aliens (sci-fi action)
- The Golden Child (Eddie Murphy comedy)
- Ruthless People (Bette Midler comedy)
- Ferris Bueller's Day Off (comedy)
Just outside the top ten were another Better Midler picture Down and Out in Beverly Hills, the Paul Newman in the Hustler sequel The Color of Money, coming of age classic Stand By Me, and the now forgotten all-star comedy Legal Eagles with Robert Redford, Debra Winger, and Daryl Hannah.
Oscar's Best Picture Nominees:
At the 59th Academy Awards, Oliver Stone's Vietnam war drama Platoon (8 nominations / 4 wins) and Woody Allen's dramedy Hannah and Her Sisters (7 noms / 3 wins) fought it out for the Best Picture prize with A Room With a View (8 noms / 3 wins) in third position. The Mission (7 noms / 1 win) and Children of a Lesser God (5 noms/1 win) were just happy to be nominated. Platoon dominated in the end winning Best Picture, the second and last Vietnam War picture to win (after The Deer Hunter).
Expanded Roster?
The Color of Money had pedigree plus Paul Newman career momentum so we assume it fell in the dread sixth spot given the response (4 noms / 1 win). The blockbuster sci-fi horror sequel Aliens circumvented the Academy's usual allergies to genre pictures (especially prevalent then) and its hefty nominations (7 noms / 2 wins) including that very deserved citation of Sigourney Weaver in Best Actress suggest it was somewhere within shouting distance so maybe 7th place? But what else? Beyond those two it's hard to say...
Other films with multiple nominations were: Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home and Top Gun (4 noms each), Crimes of the Heart and Peggy Sue Got Married (3 nominations each), Hoosiers, Little Shop of Horrors, Round Midnight, Salvador (2 noms each). Nevertheless each of those films also had drawbacks, perception-wise at the time though some are more beloved now. Films with just 1 nomination that nevertheless might have been cited in a top ten Best Picture field included Blue Velvet, My Beautiful Laundrette, and Stand By Me. Our guess: Aliens, Blue Velvet, Color of Money, Hoosiers, and either Peggy Sue Got Married or Top Gun. WHAT'S YOURS?
Films that endured (in some way) that were neither Oscar players nor box office blockbuster
Sacrifice (Tarkovsky), Down by Law (Jarmusch), Matador (Almodóvar), She's Gotta Have It (Lee), Caravaggio (Jarman), The Big Easy, Big Trouble in Little China, Sid & Nancy, The Hitcher, The Great Mouse Detective, Labyrinth, 9 1/2 Weeks, Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, River's Edge, and because they've been remade or interest was revived by association Howard the Duck (MCU), Manhunter (remade as Red Dragon), About Last Night, and The Mosquito Coast.
Notable films listed as 1986 at IMDb that most audiences didn't see until 1987 or 1988.
Ken Russell's psychosexual horror flick Gothic wasn't released until '87 and took awhile to gain its cult audience. Claude Berri's Jean de Florette and its sequel Manon of the Spring both became major arthouse hits the year after their French debuts. The British animated feature When the Wind Blows took its time travelling to other countries. As did Almodóvar's Matador (post '88 however Almodóvar had no problem getting his films released internationally)
Nathaniel's Top Ten of 1986 (actually released)
I haven't seen so many of these in a long time so take the numerical order as more of a light suggestion aside from the top four which I've seen many times and are undying personal favourites.
- A Room With a View (James Ivory, UK) masterpiece
- Aliens (James Cameron, US) masterpiece
- Hannah and Her Sisters (Woody Allen, US)
- Little Shop of Horrors (Frank Oz, US)
- My Beautiful Laundrette (Stephen Frears, UK)
- The Fly (David Cronenberg, US/UK/Canada)
- Peggy Sue Got Married (Francis Coppola, US)
- Betty Blue (Jean-Jacques Beinex, France)
...and I'm leaving two spots open for rewatches. Hoping to revisit Blue Velvet soon which I didn't understand the fuss about at the time though I was far too young for it. Notable films from 1986 which I've still never seen are (gulp) Sid & Nancy, River's Edge, Something Wild, and Caravaggio.
It's worth noting that both My Beautiful Laundrette and A Room with a View are listed as 1985 on IMDb but are more accurately 1986 pictures. That's especially true of A Room With a View so it bothers me that people consider it a 1985 film. Its sole 1985 showing anywhere was a "Royal Command Performance" so unless you were British royalty or on the invite list, you weren't able to see it anywhere (not even at festivals) until 1986. My Beautiful Laundrette did open (albeit only in the UK) late in '85 after two festival appearances (Edinburgh and TIFF) and was up for a couple of BAFTAs so the 1985 designation is more warranted but it didn't hit any other countries or festivals until 1986 when it became yet more popular, especially in the US where it then picked up a few critics prizes and an Oscar nom for Screenplay.
Magazine Covers for Context...
(You can click to enlarge)
Typical covergirls (and boys) that year were, in no particular order: Kathleen Turner, Michael J Fox, Sigourney Weaver, Molly Ringwald, Woody Allen, Pierce Brosnan, Harrison Ford, Joan Rivers, Tom Cruise, William Hurt, Moonlighting, anyone from any primetime soaps which were all the rage in the mid80s (but especially Dynasty, Dallas, and Knots Landing), pop stars (but especially the women like Madonna, Aretha, Sade, and Whitney Houston)... and Mark Harmon who was almost as ubiquitous as Michael J Fox and Tom Cruise on magazine covers that year though he never became as mega-famous.
Mix Tape (Select Smash Hits of '86): "Venus" Bananarama, "Human" The Human League, "Walk This Way" Run DMC featuring Aerosmith, "Nasty" Janet Jackson, "Two of Hearts" Stacey Q, "Mad About You" Belinda Carlisle, "Sweetest Taboo" Sade, "Danger Zone" Kenny Loggins, "True Colors" Cyndi Lauper, "That's What Friends Are For" Dionne Warwick (Grammy for Song of the Year the following February), "I'm Your Man" Wham!, "I Miss You" Klymaxx, "On My Own" Patti Labelle, "Broken Wings" Mr Mister, "Love Bizarre" Sheila E, "How Will I Know?" Whitney Houston, "Party All the Time" Eddie Murphy, "Alive and Kicking" Simple Minds, "Never" Heart, "Kiss" Prince, "Higher Love" Steve Winwood (Grammy for Record of the Year the following February), "Sledgehammer" Peter Gabriel, "Take My Breath Away" Berlin (Oscar winner Best Original Song), "Papa Don't Preach" Madonna, "Manic Monday" Bangles, "What You Need" INXS, and "Talk to Me" Stevie Nicks.
More Music: The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame held its first induction ceremony in January. Phil Collins "No Jacket Required" won the Best Album Grammy in February. Madonna releases "True Blue" in June which became the best selling album of 1986 globally, and The Smiths broke up at the tail end of the year after the success of their penultimate album "The Queen is Dead" (though one more album followed it to release after the breakup), Bands that released their first album that year were new wave favourites Book of Love with an eponymous album, and heavy metal darlings Poison with "Look What the Cat Dragged In". Other breakthrough albums released that year were "Control" and "Please" making superstars of Janet Jackson and The Pet Shop Boys, respectively. Other famous albums dropped in '86 included Depeche Mode's "Black Celebration", Jon Bon Jovi's "Slippery When Wet", Eurythmics' "Revenge", Duran Duran's "Notorious" and Paul Simon's "Graceland" (which won Album of the Year at the Grammys the following February).
TV: The year began with a disaster as CNN broadcast the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster live in January. Siskel & Ebert started the third and longest running variation of their hit TV partnership with ABC's "Siskel & Ebert & The Movies" which was later retitled "At the Movies" (they'd been a team for two previous similar series via PBS and syndication for ten years already) which would run until Siskel's death in 1999. Hit shows that debuted in the fall included Pee Wee's Big Adventure, LA Law, and Designing Women. Ellen Burstyn also tried her hand at a sitcom that year simply called The Ellen Burstyn Show but it was cancelled after 13 episodes.
At the September Emmys honoring the 1985/1986 television season, Golden Girls season 1 (Comedy), Cagney & Lacey season 5 (Drama), and Peter the Great (Miniseries) were the big winners. Unfortunately the groundbreaking NBC special An Early Frost starring Aidan Quinn, Gena Rowlands, and Ben Gazzara -- the first Network show on the topic of AIDS which was watched by 34 million households-- lost all of its nominations. It had to settle for being a major event and winning a Peabody. Notable actors who won Emmys that night included Dustin Hoffman and John Malkovich (Death of a Salesman), Michael J Fox (the first of 3 consecutive wins for Family Ties), John Lithgow (Amazing Stories -- the first of his six Emmy wins), and Betty White, who was the first Golden Girl to win for that beloved show though eventually all four stars did.
Literature:
Larry McMurtry's bestseller "Lonesome Dove" took the Pulitzer for fiction on its way to becoming a blockbuster Emmy winning miniseries in 1989. New works published that year that went on to considerable fame included Diana Wynne Jones' "Howl's Moving Castle", Pat Conroy's "The Prince of Tides", Frank Miller's "Batman: The Dark Knight Returns", Robert Ludlum's "The Bourne Supremacy", Jackie Collin's "Hollywood Husbands", Patricia MacLachlan's "Sarah Plain and Tall" and Stephen King's "It."
Lindsay Duncan and Alan Rickman were the Merquise and the Vicomte in the first production of LES LIAISONS DANGEREUSES
Stage: I'm Not Rappaport (play) and The Mystery of Edwin Drood (musical) were tops at the Tony Awards. The House of the Blue Leaves had actually led the play nominations by a lot but lost the big prize. Interestingly enough Best Revival was not split into plays or musicals but they competed against each other (!) so a revival of the musical Sweet Charity (starring Debbie Allen) beat a revival of The Iceman Cometh. Apples and Oranges!!!
The two Best Actress winners were Lily Tomlin, The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe (Play) and Bernadette Peters in Song and Dance (Musical).
Meanwhile across the ocean in the West End, Les Liaisons Dangereuses won the Olivier Award for best new play and was quickly made into the movie Dangerous Liaisons (1988). Andrew Lloyd Webber's blockbuster Phantom of the Opera won Best Musical and quickly made the leap to Broadway where it unfortunately never really closed (even COVID didn't kill it -- unfortunately it reopens on October 22nd for its 13,371st performance)
ShowTunes To Go:
Too few people realized it at the time but Little Shop of Horrors (1986) was exactly what the 1980s needed: a full blown brilliant movie musical. Ellen Greene should have been one of the Best Actress nominees that year for her indelible Audrey.
Reader Comments (36)
Wow THE GOLDEN GIRLS was like THE CROWN back then... 3/5 of the Best Actress nominees!
"Pretty In Pink" is not mentioned anywhere on this wonderful blog. It's one of my favorites, Molly Ringwald's best film. Andrew McCarthy is a beautiful sensation, John Cryer so amusing, also Annie Potts, James Spader, Harry Dean Stanton and at the end, Kristy Swanson.
My Best Picture Line Up for 1986
Aliens
Big Trouble in Little China
The Hitcher
Little Shop of Horrors
True Stories
... and I love A Room with a View, which was hard to leave out. But those five, are 5 of my fave films of all time... also, Ferris Buehler's Day Off was difficult to leave out.
My awards...
Picture - Little Shop of Horrors
Director - Frank Oz, Little Shop of Horrors
Actor - Rutger Hauer, The Hitcher
Actress - (ex aequo) Ellen Greene, Little Shop of Horrors & Sigourney Weaver, Aliens
Supp. Actor - Steve Martin, Little Shop of Horrors
Supp. Actress - Dianne Wiest, Hannah and her Sisters
Original Screenplay - True Stories
Adapted Screenplay - Aliens
Score - The Mission
Song - Dream Operator, True Stories
Cinematography - The Mission
Art Direction - Little Shop of Horrors
Film Editing - Little Shop of Horrors
Costume - A Room with a View
Sound Mixing - Aliens
Sound Editing - Aliens
Visual Effects - Little Shop of Horrors
Make Up - The Fly
Foreign Film - The Assault (Netherlands) - I LOVE it.
Little Shop of Horrors is my favorite movie from that year hands down. It’s in my top 10 movie musicals of all time. Ellen Greene would honestly be my pick for best Actress that year, but at the time response to film was more muted and the film is much more adored now.
I didn't realize you hadn't seen Something Wild! It's well worth seeking out.
Best film of the year (by far): Therese
True Stories is really the only other movie of the year to get me very excited.
My Oscar ballot:
Film: Platoon
Actor: Bob Hoskins Mona Lisa
Actress: Jane Fonda The Morning After
S. Actor: Dennis Hopper Hoosiers (a lot of people were pissed he wasn't nominated for Blue Velvet. They are wrong. The Academy got it right)
S. Actress: Dianne Wiest Hannah and Her Sisters
Director: Oliver Stone
O. Screenplay: My Beautiful Launderette
A. Screenplay: Room with a View
Foreign Film: My Sweet Little Village
Best Albums:
1. Beastie Boys Licensed to Ill
2. Mekons The Edge of the World
3. Talking Heads "True Stories"
4. Pet Shop Boys Please
5. The Indestructible Bear of Soweto
6. Feelies The Good Earth
7. Camper Van Beethoven Camper Van Beethoven
8. Run-DMC Raising Hell
9. Camper Van Beethoven II & III
10. Sonic Youth Evol
10 Best Singles:
Bangles: If He Knew What She Wants
Beastie Boys: (You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (to Party!!)
Bon Jovi: Livin' on a Prayer
Bronski Beat: Hit That Perfect Beat
Cameo: Word Up
New Order: Bizarre Love Triangle (especially the 12" remix)
Pet Shop Boys: Opportunities (Let's Make Lots of Money) - finally getting its due
Prince: Kiss
Run-DMC: You Be Illin'
Sly Fox: Let's Go All the Way
Hmmm. Not a single one mentioned in your favorite songs of the year
And a special shout-out to Oran"Juice" Jones whose hilarious "The Rain" inspired the even more hilarious answer record "Thunder and Lightning" by Miss Thang
Holy Wow your top 4 of 1986 are truly ageless, watch 'em again and again classics. It's also sort of shocking how entertaining a group that is, wonderful movies that are also undeniable crowd pleasers. How rare is that?
I think Stand By Me would have been a Best Picture nominee with the additional slots. Director Rob Reiner landed nods from both Golden Globes and the DGA. The film grossed over $50 million, playing in theaters from early August through late December.
OMG HOOSIERS!!! That was a family classic for us throughout my childhood.
And Betty White, what a perfect awards speech.
Nat: If I were to guess an additional 5 for a full top 10? Aliens (Actress and a BUNCH of techs, so that's obvious), Blue Velvet (Director nod, probably at least a couple 6th places for Dern (S. Actress) and Rossellini(Actress)) and Color of Money are safe (two acting nods, plus Screenplay and a tech, safe bet). Past that? I'm going to bet that it'd probably be Crimes of the Heart and, Oliver Stone double dipping the Top 10, Salvador. Crimes of the Heart has two acting noms and Screenplay, so fairly obvious and Salvador has 1 acting nomination and Screenplay. Top Gun, though "well edited", is an action movie that's so, accidentally(?), hilarious that a Best Picture nod seems...unlikely, even at the time. "PLAYING WITH THE BOYS!" (Yeah. Keep trying to convince us this is 100% straight, guys. It's totally working.)
Oh, 1986...
Best Picture: Blue Velvet (David Lynch)
Best Album: Parade (Prince and the Revolution)
Best Song: "I Want You" (Elvis Costello and the Attractions)
Best Single: "Kiss (Extended Version)" (Prince and the Revolution)
Best Theater: Dans la solitude des champs de coton by Bernard-Marie Koltès, directed by Patrice Chéreau (Théâtre Nanterre-Amandiers)
I'm gonna insist with two spanish language films of 1986:
-Hombre Mirando al Sudeste (Man Facing Southeast) with the score of Pedro Aznar
-El Viaje a Ninguna Parte (Voyage to Nowhere)
Both essential titles for cinephiles of world cinema.
Tremendous fact filled post! It must have been a bear to pull together, and I appreciate the effort it took!!
Looking at those magazine covers it really was a Molly, Molly world there for a while. So many great movies, and let’s be honest plenty of horrendous ones too.
My top 12 favorites (not best) for the year:
Hannah and Her Sisters
A Room with a View
Aliens
Star Trek IV
Back to School
Ruthless People
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
Peggy Sue Got Married
Stand By Me
Just Between Friends
Ginger & Fred
Lucas
Still hard to believe how few awards “An Early Frost” won. At least it was acclaimed but it really should have been showered with prizes. Still so powerful to this day.
Very comprehensive, but a few films that I consider "very" 1986 are the poorly aged Soul Man and Short Circuit, plus two of my childhood faves The Boy Who Could Fly and An American Tail.
Hannah and Her Sisters should have won tons of Oscars. In my opinion, the best screenplay of all time
Nathaniel, these vintage/lookback posts are some of my very favorite things - thanks so much for doing them!
Still consider myself more of a '90s girl than an '80s girl, but this does take me back.
I second the shoutout to AN AMERICAN TAIL - first movie I remember making me cry in a theater.
the lack of awards for ellen greene's iconic audrey still mystifies me all these years later [not even a freakin' golden globe nomination, ffs]
Here's my list of the best films of that year and it's pretty wild.
Best Album of 1986: Prince-Parade
Best Song: Prince-"Kiss"
I also want to give props to Iggy Pop and the song "Isolation" from his 1986 album Blah Blah Blah that was co-produced by David Bowie and was a more commercial album than anything else he had done at the time but it was a success worldwide.
The list of the top ten box office champs shows us why people thing the cinema of the 80s was so bad. The films that popped up with various nominations, or that are being mentioned by the team and us "chatty moviegoers" are proof that it was actually a good decade. Just one year gave us: Room with a View, My Beautiful Laundrette, The Fly, Caravaggio, Hannah and Her Sisters, The Mission (which I've always thought was very underrated, though I haven't seen it in decades), Man Facing Southeast (which would have been an arthouse smash had it come out in the 60s or 70s but vanished without a trace after a few engagements in the biggest cities), Betty Blue (also essentially shrugged off at the time despite an Oscar nomination), Little Shop of Horrors. These are all great films, and 86 wasn't even one of the best years that decade for films. (Although it wasn't released in the US for several years, Almodovar's Matador was his first great film and it opened in Spain in 86.)
The choice of Kathleen Turner cover photos tell you everything you need to know about Vanity Fair and People magazines. (Playboy's cover of her is surprisingly tame.)
Ellen Burstyn also tried her hand at a sitcom that year simply called The Ellen Burstyn Show but it was cancelled after 13 episodes.
You didn't mention that the show also starred Megan Mullally and Elaine Stritch.
First episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnJL4XANwgs
The year I was born ... I feel so ancient!
Michael J Fox - When will they tell his story? It's all there: Success, illness, drama...
Mark Harmon - He didn't become mega in movies, but he became mega on TV.
Woody Allen - The 80s are the decade of confirmation of his genius. He made all the classics a filmmaker can make. The best of his profession in his time, leaving no heirs, unlike Spielberg and Scorsese.
Tom Cruise - God, can someone so handsome and cute? How not to fall in love? (And look, I'm not such a fan). He's for the eighties what Tyrone Power is for the thirties and Rock Hudson is for the fifties.
William Hurt - A serious actor who was also a sex symbol. It was so fast that there wasn't even time to say so long.
Harrison Ford - He managed to burst the Star Wars bubble and at one point it looked like he was going to become a dramatic actor.
Bruce Willis - A charming TV comedian who managed to turn into an action movie hero. It worked again with Chris Pratt recently.
How did they give no nomination to Ferris Bueller's Day Off? It's brilliant!!!
Hannah and Her Sisters should have won Best Picture.
So weird to see the best actress winner not being on any covers here though.
And now Marlee finally has another chance at being nominated again.
Bette had quite the comeback in the late 80's
Are you saying The Fly isn't a masterpiece/
Wasn't the Jewel of the Nile big box office for Turner in 86.
Why no Molly Ringwald and Ally Sheedy in Short Circuit
6 - 10 Best Picture
The Colour of Money,Aliens,Crimes of the Heart,Mona Lisa,Hoosiers.
I wish I could have seen Lindsay Duncan as de Merteuil. I bet she killed.
Hannah and Her Sisters is the best of the year, hands down, and Woody’s all-time best as well. The 80s were his peak period.. Purple Rose of Cairo, Crimes and Misdemeanors, Broadway Danny Rose also excellent.
Amy -- that list is not my favourite songs of the year. It's just a llist of songs pulled from the top 100 singles of that year... songs I remember being played incessantly. My "favourites" list would be MUCH different. i was a new wave kid.
THE TURNER SUPREMACY
80s are the peak of pop song.
Some bad movies from this decade improve compared to what is seen today. Chuck Norris movies, for example, next to The Rock movies, which are considered class a.
Rama -- i assume it's because magazines have a long lead time and nobody know who Marlee Matlin was before November 1986.
Sawyer -- i was totally thinking that too when i saw the photo.
Prajhan -- they've never been into high school movies.
Amy -- that list is not my favourite songs of the year. It's just a llist of songs pulled from the top 100 singles of that year... songs I remember being played incessantly. My "favourites" list would be MUCH different. i was a new wave kid.
The Color Purple was 6th and Out of Africa was 9th. I don't care if they are 1985 movies. They made enough money in 86 to make the top ten so they need to be mentioned. Movies were in the conversation for months as you well know.
Mojo Bojo -- They were both included in a similar post about 1985 we stick to the calendar year for the lists to make it all make sense with the Oscars.
Nathaniel, they've never been in high school either.
@SandraDeed - I'd posit that Nicole Holofcener is the heir apparent to Woody Allen's brand of dialogue-heavy, plainly shot domestic dramedies, and she does one better by bringing a genuine feminine nuance to her stories that center around messy, complicated women (AND she was an associate editor on Hannah and Her Sisters!).